Sen Chuck Schumer (courtesy nytimes.com)

“Everyone’s seen the movie ‘In The Line of Fire,’” Senator Charles Schumer said, with about as much accuracy as he musters on any issue involving the Second Amendment, “where one of the great bad guys, [played by] John Malkovich, labored at making a gun out of plastic and wood so it could get through metal detectors and he could assassinate the president. But that was only a movie, and just this week, it has become reality. We’re facing a situation where anyone — a felon, a terrorist — can open a gun factory in their garage and the weapons they make will be undetectable. It’s stomach-churning.” In fact, there ought to be a law! ‘Cause only felons and terrorists would produce a gun without federal supervision and regulation! Hey, if they’re not felons before they “print” a plastic gun they will be after—if Chuck gets his way. Anyone remember the original anti-Glock crusade? It’s gonna be like that. Only worse. [Make the jump for the video, as it was auto-playing.]

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62 COMMENTS

  1. I assume the firing pin, springs and ammo are still metal and still detectable.

    But, Senator Schumer is and has always been a knee jerk type of politician. The media is pumping the “undetectable” meme just like they did with Glock, and once again it is all BS.

    Looking over at the BBC, all of Europe has their panties in a bunch as well.

    • Yes, but like Leary did, you could hide them all in your keychain and pen. Jorge could make a completely undetectable lethal weapon with rubber bands.

    • Note that the firing pin does not have to be made of metal — a hard nylon or even ceramic would work just fine.

      I am having a hard time imagining making a spring out of something other than steel but it is a moot point because steel springs will almost certainly NOT set off a metal detector. And if they did, a loose spring in your pocket is harmless and something that security personnel would not confiscate.

      As for ammunition, I imagine a carbon fiber composite material would work really well for the casing. And remember that a one or two shot “throw away” gun made of non-ferrous materials can be a “muzzleloader” as well. Thus you could simply pack powder and the projectile directly into the barrel. Leave a tiny machined hole for a primer, which would be impossible for security personnel to detect, and you are good to go.

    • My understanding is you can make polymers springs, a striker or pin – I’ll leave that to the the techno experts.

  2. when they banned “Saturday Night Specials” the criminals started carrying better guns. We should be so lucky that the terrorists and robbers only carry plastic 3d guns, or cheap .22 or .25 cal junk guns. I like that they are out gunned and would like to keep it that way, thanks. When I see law enforcement and the military carrying printed 3d guns, then I’ll worry. As far as I am concerned, please bring back the cheap .25 cal junk guns, and sell as many as you can to the Wal-martians. I am 80% sure i can survive being shot from a .22 cal junk gun, and I am 100% sure they wont survive when I hit back.

      • huh? no, i did not say that. What I am saying is that drug dealers and robbers as a rule obtain the cheapest easy to conceal (hand)guns that they can. If I had my druthers, I would rather be robbed with a Raven Arms MP-25 than (say) a Stevens model 320 12 ga, because I am pretty sure I will survive the former not the latter, at least long enough to fight back. People should buy whatever they can afford that they are willing to bet their life on, but I am 100% in favor of criminals having easy access to cheap low power unreliable guns. The Chinese can have that technology too.

  3. It just boggles chuck schumer’s mind that there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. Statists always think you can just pass a law and it will go away.

    • I’m sure glad this arro-ignoramous Democrat taker is on the other side of the country.

      We already have more than our share here in CA what with DiFi the ultimate extremist grabber and her Democrat brain dead party line follower colleague Boxer, plus all the State extremist grabber legislators and the executive branch takers in the Sacramento Statehouse.

    • I really enjoyed my ad. Sound was off but it was something that showed an ultrasound of a baby. Ironic that we can see an entire person inside another person and Shumer is whining that guns aren’t made out of metal anymore. Next thing you know he’ll be trying to mandate a minium metal content for all people so we can’t evade their scanners.

  5. Its obvious, keep passing laws, “criminals” don’t obey them anyways, Randy

  6. Because it’s… too damn hard to get a real gun? This is just silly but if it makes Chuckie upset, good work.

  7. Next election cycle, what are all these politicians going to be able talk about besides having spent 90% of their time talking guns?

    BTW, video loads and plays automatically. Anyway to change that?

  8. We are inevitably moving in the direction where thoughtcrimes will be punishable by law. Everytime a new threat appears to the Progressive agenda they try to tax it, whack it or jail it. After these various gun bans prove ineffectual at stopping crime, people like Schumer will insist on stringing people up just based on email correspondence, text messages and hearsay. It’s already starting to happen. The 1st Amendment will be gutted as badly as the 2nd Amendment in the name of the “common good.”

  9. Love how the media likes to leave out facts. “Made completely out of plastic” is completely false. The firing pin is steel (a nail) and he said he embedded a piece of steel in it to comply with the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 which already makes guns that can’t set off a metal detector or show up on an x-ray illegal.

    The act is up for renewal this year so they will probably make a big fuss, renew it, and declare it “a victory for common sense”.

    • Pssshh! Facts are boring. They can be used to prove something that’s even remotely true.

  10. If gun control really worked, then Schumer has nothing to worry about. The Feds already banned undetectable guns, so that means no one would ever make one with a 3D printer.

    Too bad gun control is a bunch of feel-good nonsense that does nothing more than restrict the rights of the law-abiding.

  11. Bad news. I watched Iron Man 3 yesterday with my son. Anyone who shops at Home Depot will be able to produce an entire arsenal of weapons…. mostly nonlethal… but still. I saw it in a movie so it must be true.

    Will Sen Schumer watch the “The Siege” from 1998 when despite the attack by radical Muslims the good guys end up blaming an American war hero for interogation techniques?

    • Hey, don’t discount it. I know someone that made a fully functional single-shot 12 gauge shotgun with less than $20 in parts available at any decent hardware store. And it only took them about 1 hour to make it.

      The only limitation is how much effort someone wants to invest. With nothing much more than a hacksaw, drill, a couple files, and a screwdriver, anyone can make any firearm as simple or as complicated as they want from readily available materials that will be utterly impossible to ever regulate/track.

      • Hoods have been making zip guns from hardware store parts since before Chuckie and I were born. This is not news.

        • Of course zip guns are not new to you and I. They are indeed very new to many people and especially to gun grabbers. I have enlightened countless people who have never heard, seen, nor imagined zip guns.

          What is new about zip guns is that no one ever discusses them in the gun control debate. Their very existence (zip guns) totally derails any purported benefits of gun control and I have never heard a single gun grabber ever explain them away.

  12. Freedom will always find a way because it is human nature to want to be free, and that fact just burns tyrants up. The 3D printed gun was just a good old case of American intuitiveness, and the makers did precisely what they intended to do and that was to piss liberals off by showing it can be done.

    • Speaking of showing that it can be done, think of the aboriginal people in the rain forests of South America. They routinely use blowguns to drop prey from the tree tops of the forest canopy. Last time I checked, neither their blowguns nor their darts used iron/steel. Now imagine the possibilities if someone took advantage of modern materials and machining techniques: it would be a fairly easy project to make a device entirely out of plastic that would easily launch a small dart with plenty of velocity and accuracy to strike a target reliably at some distance. Keep in mind that darts, bolts, and arrows are capable of penetrating a lot more material than bullets. (Hint: an arrow has no trouble penetrating bullet resistant vests and even sand bags for that matter.)

  13. Here’s what frosts me: Schumer has a fundamental misunderstanding of how laws work. To wit:

    “Passing this law will not only prevent people from making these parts, it would raise awareness on the issue.”

    Passing laws doesn’t prevent people from doing things, it just sets the bar a bit higher. Criminals don’t care about laws, and just like most other gun laws, this won’t do anything about criminals, it will just make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding people.

    Second, you don’t pass laws to “raise awareness.” That’s not what laws are for. You want to raise awareness, hold a press conference.

  14. He should take his thumb out of his mouth and stick it up his ass where it belongs…

  16. Schumer would invent something for him and his like to “control” in any situation you could imagine because controlling the Plebs is the only way he can validate himself.
    This is going to be worse than the GLOCK Flap because the willful ignorance factor is much, much higher.

    • Legally, the gun has to be detectable in X-ray machines and metal detectors.

      From a technical standpoint, I don’t believe the barrel has to be metal. There are some really strong nylon materials available. And I believe several carbon fiber composite materials rival the tensile strength of steel.

      I have also heard about ceramics that are stronger than steel without the brittle quality that we usually associate with ceramic materials. A ceramic tube that was not brittle would serve the function of a barrel quite well. But I have no idea if such a ceramic tube exists anywhere.

  19. If I were a felon or a terrorist, I’d rather have a cap’n’ball revolver than that plastic crap. Just saying. There are better, unregulated options out there.

  20. Hey New York, how did a Ja* Off like this get in office anyway? What the hell is wrong with voters?

  21. Given that to date exactly one man has made a 3D printed gun I’d have to say statistically 100% of people 3D printing guns are cheeky law students who are federally licensed to do so.

    Any other notion is wishful thinking/pulled out of one’s arse.

    Politicians need to stop trying to look like they are leading when their job is to follow.

  25. What is more-over the problem with his flawed thinking is this;

    The 2nd ammendments clarity on the issue iof “not to be infringed” is in the anti-sentament schumer bolsters, “make firearms in their basements.” This, in essence, is the fundamental basis of a free state, as requiring a civilian malitia. One can make ANY number if weapons in his basement, garage, house, shed or any other facility without ever applying for a fire arms manufacturing license or serializing it if it is never sold. Add to that Kansas’ possition also if it sremains within the state, it can be of ANY design or type. That not to say, that in times of national “emergency”, that those arms can not be possessed & used by others in the so called national emergency… Many arms supplied during the revolutionary war were of borrowed, not bought, origin.

  27. I guess my undetecatble porcelean gun is out dated now. That really sucks because it cost me more than the average police captain makes in a month.

  28. This is what Yankee Ingenuity is all about. As long as the Tyrants try to destroy our freedoms and confiscate our firearms, the innovators, patriots, homeowners and experimenters will remain several steps ahead. The COMMUNISTS IN OFFICE, such as the one quoted in this article will never succeed in their desire to enslave Americans. This nation was founded and we remain free because of the invention of Firearms. The political elite are protected by men carrying Firearms, the criminal element and terrorist groups are armed, yet the men and women we elected to protect and represent us and who swore to obey and defend the Constitution are doing backflips in their attempts to disarm law abiding and trusted Americans. As long as these traitors to our freedoms and rights continue their unrelenting drive to negate the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment, creative men and women will work tirelessly to invent new methods and techniques to provide the arms and weapons free men require to remain free. It will not take a stretch of ones imagination to predict the new laws that will be proposed, such as requiring 3D printers and their supplies to licensed by the Federal Government, or laws than make instant Felons of anyone who makes a plastic firearm. But laws only work if the person is caught, and do little or nothing to stop the behavior that lawmakers dislike. Sadly, lawmakers instantly want to criminalize these inventors work, rather than celebrate American ingenuity in developing new defensive firearms for American citizens. Why do lawmakers distrust the American people and at the same time send millions of dollars of military weapons to enemies and sworn killers of Americans? Right now-Obama is arming the same terrorist network that planned and executed 9-11, and that has killed thousands of American soldiers on the battlefield, yet he has sworn to take the lawfully owned arms from Americans, and has declared Veterans and Tea Party members, Constitutionalists and Christians as DOMESTIC TERRORISTS. One can only conclude that the Government has plans to enslave the American people and radical Islam might be involved. Sound Farfetched ? The attack on the Benghazi Diplomatic Compound was because of a anti-Islamic film….Right ?

  29. Even though I don’t want or need one, it makes me want to get one just to piss him off !

  30. Like the Glock the barrel and firing pin and hammer all are metal so the “Glock 7” argument is dead.

  33. The technology for printing any parts has come a long way in recent years. I had the opportunity to ‘buy-in’ on the technology 10 years ago, but then, as is now, the application is still limited.

    In order to create a firearm, or any mechanical device that requires decent precision, 2 things need to happen: the material needs to be the correct type, and the manufacturing needs to be accurate. To say that 3D printing technology can produce a firearm, even a mediocre firearm, is a big stretch because of these two requirements. That same effort could produce a real gun if the gunsmith spent similar money on a lathe, milling machine, some decent metal and tooling. It’s just easier to buy a laptop and a machine that squirts layers of hot plastic than to learn machining…but it’s very hard to change physics and material properties.

  34. Mostly I see the ability to print 30 round magazines the most interesting. Especially now that states are restricting the size of magazines. Printing an entire gun that I would actually shoot (with my tender, magnificent body) has not yet happened.

  35. Memo to Senator Schumer: The genie is out of the bottle. You might as well try to ban progress.

  36. Haha. Schumer is afraid an angry New Yorker is going to jump out at him inside the secure zone with a plastic gun, shout “Sic semper tyrannis,” and shoot him dead.

    Why worry senator? Just leaders have nothing to worry about right?

  38. Schumer, you pile of human poo. You dont give a damn about felons and their, LOL 3D printers. This continued attack on firearm ownership, is about control of the serfs.

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